Morning ladies and gents.

The concrete looks great Glen.

Yea it is getting good and hard. Wait, I mean the concrete!

Hehe

We're off for some brunch somewheres, I'll catch y'all later.

Glen, that hole looks nice but doesn't look near deep enough to be a fraidy hole. :)

Nope it aint.

The fraidy hole goes in on the 27th. After that I can clean the garage real well and be done with concrete dust.

I have been racking my brains on a SAFE and efficient way to lower the lift into the pit. I finally thought of yet another buddy to call for help. He has a ranch and has one of those hydraulic operated spikes to move round bales of hay. It will lift a wet round bail of hay with no problem. It is attached to his F350 pickup so it will be a tight fit to get it into my one car garage bay. I will owe him a tank of diesel for his troubles but that sure beats renting a fork lift or some of the other inventions I have dreamed up and shot down.

Good Thursday morning folks!

Morning everyone. Going to be a busy next few months at work.

Think of it as job security! :p

Hope the 27th isn't too late for the fraidy hole, it is That Season right now.

There is always another season. And it does not just stop in June. May is for sure the biggest month for storms.

Glen, if you think a crane would help, my dad is in OKC on occasion with a crane and would probably help for a good plate of Mexican food. ;)

A crane would likely be a real challenge to get into the garage. The top of the garage door is pretty low. I will know soon know if my buddy with a hay mover will work.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1399566093.jpg

A wet round bale of hay can weigh 1,200 lbs or more.

If this does not work I will call your dad for sure.

Ya he would just have to park outside, but you could run the winch line in the door and use it to lower it down

Too bad you don't have a lift to lift the lift. :)

Remember when my brother wanted to borrow my Jeep to pull a trailer with an old Ford Tractor. He insisted putting the tractor as far forward as he could on the trailer. He wanted to use my Jeep Cherokee because he had already broken the bumper off his Ford F150 with way too much tongue weight. Good thing the hitch on the Jeep was class 3 welded to the frame. When he loaded the tractor all the way forward it lifted the front tires of the Jeep 2 ft off the ground. I had to point out that I couldn't steer before he moved the tractor closer to the center of the trailer. And he is a college edumacated engineer. Still had to stop after he was out of sight and move the tractor back farther on the trailer to get the correct tongue weight. Still don't know what part of using the trailer to carry the load he didn't understand. Guess that's better than having the weight so far back the trailer steers the tow vehicle and the hitch comes off the ball and takes out a stop light control box. He's done that too.

You would need to somehow freeze the ice solid to hold up the 900lb lift.

Pretty crafty idea Jim. ;).

You could build a hefty frame with wheels to strattle the hole and will roll over the lift. Raise the lift, attach the top of the lift to the frame. Lower the lift, effectively raising the bottom of the lift. Move the contraption over the hole. Raise the lift, lowering the bottom of the lift into the hole. Detach the top of the lift from the frame. Lower the lift thereby installing it in the hole.This would be using the lift to lift the lift. You could keep the frame in case you wanted to take the lift out of the hole in the future.

You could sell the plans to other portable lift owners, or maybe rent it out. Maybe you could sell the design to the lift company to sell as an accessory for the lift. The Lift Caddy™.

I actually thought about the big block of ice, but quickly realized I would need some super-mega refrigeration and with my luck the ice would crack the concrete. If I just bought blocks of ice I am back to how to put a heavy chunk of ICE in the pit.

All that ice and refrigeration would cost a fortune.

I thought of building an A-frame over the pit to lift the lift into place. It would take a lot of wood to make a structure strong enough and cost another fortune and I would have a big pile of scrap wood left over.

The rafters are not accessible because of the finished ceiling and the garage door opener. I can't see taking down the garage door and poking holes into the nice ceiling just to drop the lift. Again stupid expensive and lots of work.

I was thinking of renting a forklift but that is expensive as well.

So far the round hay bale lifter and some straps makes the most sense.

How about using an engine crane? Are the legs not wide enough apart? They are pretty cheap to buy, and I imagine that they would be available at rental stores. Some can be towed like a trailer.

Most of the ones I saw were maxed out at 500 lbs at the extension that would be needed. The pit is 45 inches wide and 86 inches long. The legs of the engine cherry picker would not straddle it.